MCLC: ballad of Mr. Guo

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Kevin B Lee <kevin at dgeneratefilms.com>
Subject: ballad of Mr. Guo
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Note: the film described in this article, "The Transition Period" is
distributed by dGenerate Films:

http://dgeneratefilms.com/catalog/the-transition-period-shu-ji/

Kevin

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Source: The Economist (5/26/12): http://www.economist.com/node/21555772

THE BALLAD OF MR. GUO
By Simon Cox

SINGING KARAOKE WITH Taiwanese investors, smearing birthday cake on
the cheeks of an American factory owner, knocking back baijiu, a
Chinese spirit, with property developers: Guo Yongchang would do
anything to attract investment to Gushi, a county of 1.6m people in
Henan province, where he served as party secretary. His antics are
recorded in ³The Transition Period², a remarkable fly-on-the-wall
documentary about his last months in office, filmed by Zhou Hao.

Mr Guo persuades one developer to raise the price of his flats because
Gushi people are interested only in the priciest properties. After a
boozy dinner he drapes himself over the developer¹s shoulder and
extracts a promise from him to add more storeys to his tower to outdo
the one in the neighbouring city.

The one-upmanship exemplified by Mr Guo has generated great economic
dynamism, but also great inefficiency. When the central government
tries to stop economic overheating, local governments resist.
Conversely, when the government urged the banks to support its 2008
stimulus effort, local governments scrambled to claim an outsized
share of the lending. The result is a local-government debt burden
worth over a fifth of China¹s 2011 GDP.

The worst abuses, however, involve land. Local officials can convert
collectively owned rural plots into land for private development.
Since farmers cannot sell their land directly to developers, they have
to accept what the government is willing to pay. Often that is not
very much.

Such perverse incentives have caused China¹s towns and cities to grow
faster in area than they have grown in population. Their outward
ripple has engulfed some rural communities without quite erasing them.
The perimeter of Wenzhou city in Zhejiang province, to take one
example, now encompasses clutches of farmhouses, complete with
vegetable plots, quacking ducks and free-range children. This results
in some incongruous sights. Parked outside one farmhouse are an Audi,
a Mercedes and a Porsche. Alas, they do not belong to the locals but
to city slickers who want their hub caps repainted.

Oddly, where electoral reforms have given Chinese villagers a bigger
say in local government, growth tends to slow, according to Monica
Martinez-Bravo of Johns Hopkins University and her colleagues. This is
partly because elected local officials shift their efforts from
expanding the economy to providing public goods, such as safe water.
But it is also because a scattered electorate cannot monitor them as
closely as their party superiors can.

Fear of their bosses and hunger for revenues keep local officials on
their toes. Mr Guo, star of ³The Transition Period², was eventually
convicted of bribery. He was not entirely honest in the performance of
his duties, and not always sober either. But with all the parties,
banquets and karaoke, no one could accuse him of being lazy.